Cebu lechon is PH bet for world's best barbecue

Cebu lechon will go head-to-head with the world's best at the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest in Memphis, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday.

A team from Marco Polo Plaza hotel in Cebu led by Carlos Dingding Jr. will enter lechon de leche in the competition. According to event organizers, winners will get $110,000 in prizes as well as bragging rights of having the best barbecue.

Chef Claude Tayag has also been invited to Memphis in May to share Filipino cuisine with attendees. Tayag's dishes will be on the menu of Chez Philippe, a restaurant at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee on May 11 and 12, organizers said.

His dishes will also be served during the intermission of a performance to showcase the Bayanihan dance company and a presentation of Filipino martial art Arnis.

Tayag, a renowned chef, runs Bale Dutung in Angeles City. The restaurant "is known as one of the Philippines’s gastronomic centers," DFA said.

The pili nut will also be launched as a gourmet product to rival the macadamia nut in the U.S. market, the DFA said.